The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner Book 2) (57)
CHAPTER
57
Despite
the wind and the hubbub of people, the world quieted around Thomas for a
minute, as if his ears had been stuffed with cotton. He fell to his knees and
numbly reached out to touch the flapping orange ribbon. This was the
safe haven? Not a building, a shelter, something?
Then,
as quickly as it had disappeared, sound rushed back in, snapping him back to
reality. Mostly the rush of wind and the chatter of conversation.
He
turned back to Teresa and Minho, who stood side by side, Aris behind them
peeking over their shoulders.
Thomas
glanced at his watch. “We have over an hour left. Our safe haven is a stick in
the ground?” Confusion muddled his mind—he wasn’t quite sure what to think or
say.
“Wasn’t
so bad, when you think about it,” Minho said. “More than half of us made it
here. Looks like even more of the girlie group.”
Thomas
stood up, trying to control his anger. “The Flare turn you crazy already? Yeah,
we got here. Safe and sound. To a stick.”
Minho
scoffed at him. “Dude, they wouldn’t send us here for no reason. We made it in
the time they gave us. Now we just wait until the clock ticks down and
something’ll happen.”
“That’s
what worries me,” Thomas said.
“Hate
to say it,” Teresa added, “but I agree with Thomas. After everything they’ve
done to us, it’d be way too easy to have a little sign here, and then they come
get us in a nice helicopter as a reward.
Something
bad’s gonna happen.”
“Whatever
you say, traitor,” Minho said, his face hiding none of the hatred he felt for
Teresa. “I don’t want to hear another word from you.” He walked away, angrier
than Thomas had ever seen him.
Thomas
looked at Teresa, who was visibly taken aback. “You shouldn’t be surprised.”
She
just shrugged. “I’m sick of apologizing. I did what I had to do.”
Thomas
couldn’t believe she was serious. “Whatever. I need to find Newt. I want—”
Before
he could finish, Brenda appeared out of the crowd, glancing back and forth
between him and Teresa. The wind tore through her long hair, whipping it
frenziedly so that she kept pushing it behind her ears only to have it fly out
again.
“Brenda,”
he said. For some reason he felt guilty.
“Hey
there,” Brenda said, walking up to stand right in front of him and Teresa.
“This the girl you were tellin’ me about? When you and I were snuggling in that
truck?”
“Yeah.”
The word popped out of Thomas’s mouth before he could stop it. “No. I mean …
yeah.”
Teresa
held her hand out to Brenda, who shook it. “I’m Teresa.”
“Nice
to meet you,” Brenda replied. “I’m a Crank. I’m slowly going crazy. I keep
wanting to chew off my own fingers and randomly kill people. Thomas here
promised to save me.” Though she was obviously joking, she didn’t even crack a
smile.
Thomas
had to hide a wince. “Funny, Brenda.”
“Glad
to see you still have a sense of humor about it,” Teresa said. But her face
could’ve turned water to ice.
Thomas
looked down at his watch. Fifty-five minutes left. “I, um, need to talk to
Newt.” He turned and quickly walked away before either girl could say anything.
He wanted to be as far away from both of them as possible.
Newt
was sitting on the ground with Frypan and Minho, all three looking as if they
were waiting for the end of the world.
The
tearing wind had gained a moisture to it, and the billowing, churning clouds
above them had lowered considerably, like a dark fog dropping to swallow the
earth. Glimpses of light flashed here and there in the sky, burning patches of
purple and orange in the grayness. Thomas hadn’t seen an actual lightning bolt
yet, but he knew they were coming. The first big storm had begun just like
this.
“Hey,
Tommy,” Newt said when Thomas joined them. He sat down next to his friend and
wrapped his arms around his knees. Two simple words with nothing behind them.
It was as if Thomas had just gone for a leisurely walk instead of being
kidnapped and almost killed.
“Glad
to see you guys made it here,” Thomas said.
Frypan
snorted his usual animal-like bark of a laugh. “Same back at ya. Looks like you
had more fun, though. Hangin’ with your love goddess. Guess you two kissed and
made up?”
“Not
exactly,” Thomas said. “It wasn’t fun.”
“Well,
what happened?” Minho asked. “How can you trust her after all that?”
Thomas
hesitated at first, but he knew he had to tell them everything. And there was
no better time than the present. He sucked in a deep breath and started
talking. He told them about WICKED’s plan for him, the camp, his talk with
Group B, the gas chamber. Still none of it made sense, but he felt a little
better telling his friends.
“And
you forgave that witch?” Minho asked when Thomas finally finished. “I won’t.
Whatever those shuck WICKED people wanna do, fine by me. Whatever you wanna do,
fine by me. But I don’t trust her, I don’t trust Aris, and I don’t like either
one of them.”
Newt
seemed to consider it more deeply. “They went through all that—all that
planning and acting—just to make you feel betrayed? Doesn’t make any
bloody sense.”
“Tell
me about it,” Thomas muttered. “And no, I haven’t forgiven her. But for now I
think we’re in the same boat.” He looked around—most people were sitting down,
staring off into the distance. Not much conversation, and not a whole lot of
mingling between the two groups. “What about you guys? How’d you make it here?”
“Found
a gap through the mountains,” Minho answered. “Had to fight through some Cranks
camping in a cave, but other than that, no problems. Food and water’s almost
out, though. And my feet hurt. And I’m pretty sure another big bolt of shuck
lightning’s about to come down and make me look like a piece of Frypan’s
bacon.”
“Yeah,”
Thomas said. He glanced back at the mountains, guessed that all in all they’d
probably come about four miles from the base. “Maybe we should bag this whole
safe haven thing and try to find shelter.” But even as he said it, he knew it
wasn’t an option. At least not until the time ran out.
“No
way,” Newt replied. “We didn’t come this far to go back now. Let’s just hope
the buggin’ storm holds off a little longer.” He looked up at the almost black
clouds with a grimace.
The
other three Gladers had grown silent. The wind had continued to pick up, and
its rushing roars and whips now made it hard to hear each other anyway. Thomas
looked at his watch.
Thirty-five
minutes. No way this storm would hold for—
“What’s
that!” Minho shouted, jumping to his feet; he pointed at a spot over Thomas’s
shoulder.
Thomas
turned to look as he stood up, alarm igniting inside him. The terror on Minho’s
face had been unmistakable.
About
thirty feet from the group, a large section of the desert ground was … opening.
A perfect square—maybe fifteen feet wide—pivoted on a diagonal axis as the
dirt-packed side slowly spun away from them and what had lain underneath rose
up to replace it. The sound of groaning, twisting steel pierced the air, louder
than the roaring wind. Soon the rotating square had fully flipped, and where
once had been desert ground now lay a section of black material, with an odd
object sitting on top of it.
It
was oblong and white with rounded edges. Thomas had seen something just like it
before. Several of them, in fact. After they’d escaped the Maze and entered the
huge chamber where the Grievers had come from, they’d seen several of these
coffinlike containers. He hadn’t had much time to think about it then, but seeing
it now, he thought those must’ve been where the Grievers stayed—slept?—when not
hunting humans in the Maze.
Before
he had time to react, more sections of the desert floor—surrounding their group
in a large circle—started to rotate open like dark, gaping jaws.
Dozens
of them.
0 comments:
Post a Comment